For some time Jack did not answer.  Despite Peter’s good opinion of him, he still felt that he had either said or done something he should be ashamed of.  He knew it was his snap judgment about Cohen that had been the cause of the object lesson he had just received.  Peter had not said so in so many words—­it was always with a jest or a laugh that he corrected his faults, but he felt their truth all the same.

For some minutes he leaned back in his chair, his eyes on the ceiling; then he said in a tone of conviction: 

“I was wrong about Mr. Cohen, Uncle Peter.  I am always putting my foot in it.  He is an extraordinary man.  He certainly is, to listen to, whatever he is in his business.”

“No, Jack, my boy—­you were only honest,” Peter rejoined, passing over the covert allusion to the financial side of the tailor.  “You didn’t like his race and you said so.  Act first.  Then you found out you were wrong and you said so.  Act second.  Then you discovered you owed him an ample apology and you bowed him out as if he had been a duke.  Act third.  And now comes the epilogue—­ Better be kind and human than be king!  Eh, Jack?” and the old gentleman threw back his head and laughed heartily.

Jack made no reply.  He was through with Cohen;—­something else was on his mind of far more importance than the likes and dislikes of all the Jews in Christendom.  Something he had intended to lay before Peter at the very moment the old fellow had sent him for Isaac—­something he had come all the way to New York to discuss with him; something that had worried him for days.  There was but half an hour left; then he must get his bag and say good-night and good-by for another week or more.

Peter noticed the boy’s mood and laid his hand on his wrist.  Somehow this was not the same Jack.

“I haven’t hurt you, my son, have I?” he asked with a note of tenderness in his voice.

“Hurt me!  You couldn’t hurt me, Uncle Peter!” There was no question of his sincerity as he spoke.  It sprang straight from his heart.

“Well, then, what’s the matter?—­out with it.  No secrets from blundering old Peter,” he rejoined in a satisfied tone.

Jack laughed gently:  “Well, sir, it’s about the work.”  It wasn’t; but it might lead to it later on,

“Work!—­what’s the matter with the work!  Anything wrong?” There was a note of alarm now that made Jack reply hastily: 

“No, it will be finished next month:  we are lining up the arches this week and the railroad people have already begun to dump their cross ties along the road bed.  It’s about another job.  Mr. MacFarlane, I am afraid, hasn’t made much money on the fill and tunnel, but he has some other work offered him up in Western Maryland, which he may take, and which, if he does, may pay handsomely.  He wants me to go with him.  It means a shanty and a negro cook, as near as I can figure it, but I shall get used to that, I suppose.  What do you think about it?”